


break through the ceiling, crack the sky

by Anniely



Series: sometimes flying, mostly falling [3]
Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Cliffhanger, F/M, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24474109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anniely/pseuds/Anniely
Summary: Liz can see the crash coming, the collision of two forces unwilling to move, but she is incapable of stopping it, can only hang on and close her eyes.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen/Raymond Reddington
Series: sometimes flying, mostly falling [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/139149
Kudos: 13





	break through the ceiling, crack the sky

He gets the call on his private line. His wife stirs next to him, but he picks up the phone before it can ring a second time.  
  
It's a short conversation, barely thirty seconds long. He listens mostly. Then he nods, even though the person at the other end can't see him.  
  
'Yes, fine. This has been going on long enough. Do you know where he is now?'  
  
There is a short silence, interrupted only by the distant sound of sirens.  
  
'You've got a free hand on this one.'  
  
He puts the phone back on the bedside table and sinks back onto his pillow, a crease between his gray eyebrows.  
  
'Who was that, honey?' his wife asks sleepily from beside him.  
  
'Just work, dear, just work.'  
  
Bradley was right, he should have given this order years ago, he thinks, as he stares up at the ceiling. But he'll be damned if he'll ever admit that; he hasn't made it this far because he is known for making mistakes. Besides, a kill order is a kill order and it will get the job done even after twenty years.  
  
Alan Fitch is asleep again a minute later, snoring lightly, while outside the city is still burning.

* * *

The day after the explosion dawns bright and clear.  
  
Liz is standing at the window of an expensive hotel suite, wrapped in a soft blanket and looks out across the half-asleep city. The TV in the corner is on, but muted, and there are pictures of the burnt out hotel flashing across the screen. No official statement has yet been made as to the cause of the explosion.  
  
She knows that in some dark office people are sitting around a table, frantically trying to come up with a story to tell journalists and families of victims and officials and, most importantly, the people with the power who can't afford to have to explain why there has been what might be a terrorist attack on US soil. After 9/11, the people in charge had decided that a war on terror had to be fought in order to protect the citizens of the United States. A large junk of government money had been spent on weapons and operations so secret even the people involved didn't really know why they were doing what they were doing. To the average American, the government had succeeded; those who worked for the government knew better: people were still dying, on every possible side, and the government had just gotten better at disguising disappearances as round-the-world trips, sudden deaths as accidents and willful explosions as gas leaks.  
  
It's knowledge like this that makes Liz wonder whether Red's way of living isn't, if not easier, at least more honest. People were dying on every possible side, anyway.  
  
She draws the blanket around herself a little tighter, trying to fight off a shiver. She's come a long way from the young woman who wanted to be an FBI agent to do _good thing_ _s_. Now she thinks there might not be _good things_ at all, only right things, and that good and right aren't the same at all.  
  
'When are we going to leave?' she asks without turning around. She feels calmer than she anticipated she would at the thought of running away with a criminal; she hopes it's not a calm-before-the-storm kind of thing.  
  
Red is sitting on the couch, legs crossed at the ankles, an expensive cup of coffee in his hands.  
  
'Not before lunch, I think. There are a few things that need to be taken care of first,' he says and takes a sip. He makes even drinking coffee look like a ritual that has to be performed meticulously. 'I have to contact a few people, call in a few favors.'  
  
'What kind of favors?'  
  
Before Red can answer, the door to the suits opens and Dembe comes in, his nose slightly crooked and sporting a bruise that stretches from eye to eye. Tommy steps into the room right behind him. There are dark smudges under her eyes and a bandage is peeking out under the collar of her neatly ironed shirt. It dawns on Liz that Red owes many of the times he walks about looking no worse for wear to his friends. One of these days she will ask Red, who's calmly putting his bone china cup down, what he did to make these people so willing to bleed for him.  
  
'We've been compromised. We need to leave, now,' Tommy says. Considering the situation, she could sound a little more concerned.  
  
She pulls clothes out of a bag she's carrying and hands them to Liz along with a gun. Liz looks at it for a moment, undecided. It's one thing to say that she'll stay with Red, it's another to pick up a gun for him. That makes it final somehow: She won't be one of the good guys anymore; she'll be one of those people the good guys shoot at.  
But she takes it after a few seconds and the familiar weight in her hand is reassuring. Her hands don't shake at all.  
She puts the gun under the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back, when she is dressed. Her gun instructor at the academy would have hit her over the head for this. _People have lost butt cheeks like that and let me tell you, pants just don't sit right if you don't have an ass to hold 'em up!  
  
_ 'And there goes lunch,' Liz says more to herself than anyone else, as she follows the others out of the room.  
  
She wonders where she'll be spending the next night. She wonders how many nights she will have left to spend.  
  
As the door falls shut behind her, she wonders if it matters at all.

* * *

When she doesn't come to work the day after the explosion, the FBI sends people to her house who search it top to bottom, turn her underwear drawer upside-down, break her favorite mug and kick over Hudson's water bowl. A week later, she is put on Interpol's _Wanted_ list. Two months later, her belongings are put into government-paid storage and her house is sold to a young family with two children and a tabby cat.  
  
At the post office, Cooper does a little official speech, talking about giving someone the benefit of the doubt and how they can't be sure what happened. As far as they know, Red might have taken her against her will.  
Her colleagues keep staring at her empty desk. Ressler knows it's futile, but he tries to call her, once; it goes straight to voice mail and he doesn't leave a message. He doesn't need to.

* * *

They're out of the hotel in less than two minutes, in the car in another two and in a jet to God knows where in under thirty minutes. It's not quite sixty seconds, but they do get stuck in morning traffic so Liz decides to let this one slide.

* * *

They break down the door and storm the room like a flock of dark shadows. They're methodical in their search, not leaving a single corner unchecked, their weapons always at the ready. But in the end, they have to admit that the hotel room is empty, except for a few discarded clothes and half a cup of cold coffee.  
  
The men in the ski masks gather near the broken door and one of them pulls a phone out of his jacket.  
  
'They're gone', he says, after dialing the only number on his disposable cell.  
  
He listens.  
  
'Understood.'  
  
He crushes the phone under the heel of his heavy boot and then nods to one of the men who gets to work immediately, pulling out wires and little gray packets neatly stamped with red writing – _C4_ , it reads – from his messenger bag.  
  
They step over the lifeless body of a maid on their way out, five minutes later.  
  
When they reach the lobby, an explosion shakes the hotel, little pieces of debris floating from the ceiling, as the hotel room they just left goes up in flames, their message to Raymond Reddington floating to the sky in wads of smoke.  
  
They are coming.

* * *

It's a nice jet, she has to admit. Comfortable seats and enough space for your legs can go a long way in making her happy. Liz sinks down into one of the window seats and watches Dembe stash the few pieces of luggage they have.  
  
It might be the lack of sleep, but running off with a wanted criminal and his weird patchwork family seems neither as crazy nor as terrifying as it should, even though what they are doing right now feels more like a strategic retreat from the criminals (one of whom is her father) they want to bring down.  
But within the last twenty-four hours, she's almost been blown up, found out about her relation to Raymond Reddington and decided to leave the FBI and her home on a whim. She is wearing clothes that aren't her own and her hair still smells slightly like fire; she knows that the people who know her will soon consider her a traitor to her country.  
  
There's time to attack later, she thinks and leans back, letting herself be lulled to sleep by the humming of the engine and the voices of the other three passengers.  
  
She closes her eyes and breaths out. She's safe, she's on the run.  
  
She's alive.

* * *

The sky outside her window is bright white and blue, the clouds completely obscuring whatever land or water they are currently overflying, when she wakes up in the sun-lit plane, two hours later, comfortably warm and, somehow, well-rested.  
  
Dembe and Tommy are across the aisle, heads tilted towards one another, quietly conversing in a language Liz can neither understand nor place. They look comfortable with each other, as if they're used to sharing space, and so very calm despite their injuries and the fact that they're currently on the run. Maybe they've lived so long with death always looming over them, grasping at their backs, that they've become used to living in a shadow that might, at any second, swallow them whole. Maybe they don't have to look over their shoulder all the time anymore, because they already know what they will see. They hold their guns out in front of them, because death has their backs and one day they will decide to stop running and let him catch up.  
  
When she was eight, Liz had to write an essay titled _What I want to be when I am older_. She went home not knowing what to write. In the end, she wrote that she wanted to be like her father, always doing the right thing.  
Now, she is looking at these people who carry guns like others do flowers and don't hide their softness because soft things bend but don't break and Liz knows that's what she wants to be.  
  
She feels the gun Tommy gave her at her back and drapes this newfound resolution around herself like a blanket: _That is what I want to be._ _That's what I will be_.  
  
Red watches her sit up straighter, lifting her head just the tiniest bit, like she is readying herself for battle.

* * *

Her thin arms are around his neck and her hair smells of smoke and fire, as he pulls her out from under the bush. He holds her, gently, afraid of letting go. There is a bench in the playground and he sits down with her on his lap and stares at the smoldering ruin of her home over her head.  
He doesn't even realize that he's crying until she scrubs at his face, leaving sooty streaks across his cheek.  
  
 _Why are you crying?_ Liz asks, her voice raspy from crying and the smoke she has inhaled. There's an angry red burn on her wrist. He should really take her to see a doctor.  
  
He tries to smile at her, but knows he's failing miserably.  
  
 _I_ _'m crying because I'm sad.  
  
_ He doesn't want to be the one to have to explain fire and death to a child. All he really wants to do is go home.  
  
 _I'm sad, too_ she admits and hugs him a little tighter.  
  
 _And I'm scared_ she whispers into his shoulder.  
  
Life has not made Raymond Reddington a violent man yet, but he swears to himself, in that moment, that if he ever finds the man who made her scared, he is going kill him.

* * *

'Slept well?' Red asks softly, breathing out and chasing his ghosts away with the breath he releases.  
  
Liz looks up at him. He's sitting across from her, a pair of reading glasses on his nose that she has never seen before. They make him seem small, somehow, like they take all of his looming presence away from him, leaving only a man in an expensive suit. It's the first time Liz realizes that if just one different choice had been made, that is exactly what Red would be: A man with a family and a house and reading glasses.  
  
Liz believes in choices and taking responsibility for your actions. She has interrogated too many people who tried to blame the things they did on someone else, on some dark twist of fate. Red has never hidden what he is capable of or what he has already done, but Liz knows, or at least she's trying to be sure, that what he has done is not what he is.  
It's this half-knowledge that makes her want to ask what made a good man choose as he did.  
  
'Ask, Lizzy,' Red says suddenly, making her thoughts stutter and halt.  
  
'I don't know where to start,' she admits. It's like going grocery shopping when you're hungry. You want to eat everything, but as soon as you set foot into the store, you don't know what to get. There are just too many _how_ s and _why_ s on her list and every time she can cross one of them off another three appear.  
  
'You could ask me where we are going.'  
  
'Where are we going?' she asks. It's a safe question, for him and her. Here or there, no in-between.  
  
'Cuba,' Red gives back, and just like that the easy question is answered and gone.  
  
'Why?' It's a bit childish, as questions go. _Flowers can't grow in Winter, Lizzy. Why? Because it's too cold. They would die. Why? They need sun and warmth. Why? Because without it, they die. But why?  
  
_ 'Your father - '  
  
'He's not my father, Red. Sam was my father.' She almost says _is_ , but catches herself just in time. It's difficult for her, some days, to incorporate loss into language, to give it room, to allow it to exist inside herself and out. But exist it does, whether she wants it or not, and death means past tense.  
  
'Caleb Bradley,' Red says slowly, like saying the name out loud physically pains him, 'Has connections to people he will call in as reinforcements for going after us. Kassim gave us their names. I was planning on taking out those people before things between Caleb and us could escalate, but I didn't count on him finding us quite so fast. Now we'll improvise. There is a man in Cuba who is going to help us level the field.'  
  
It takes Liz a minute to process this information, because she has the feeling that there is something lurking just behind the obvious things Red just told her. Something she should have figured out a long time ago, something important.  
  
'Why would he come after you now? He must have known that you were back all this time. What changed?' she asks slowly.  
  
'I'm guessing that he caught on to the fact that the people I was helping you and the FBI catch were people who were or had been employed by him.'  
  
'But you knew that would happen sooner or later,' Liz says. She's pretty sure Red has a contingency plan in place for almost every possible scenario. The apocalypse probably wouldn't surprise him.  
  
'I did. Which is why I insisted on that almost ridiculous contract with the government. In order for Caleb to go after me, he would have to ask permission.'  
  
'Who would he have to ask for permission?' she asks, but she already knows; her mind has finally connected the dots she had been too blind to even see.  
  
'Lizzy,' Red simply says and she knows he knows that she knows. So much knowledge and nothing to do with it.  
  
'He is working with someone in the government and when you started helping the FBI, you made yourself untouchable while you used their resources to take out his associates.'  
  
'Yes. I wasn't helping the FBI out of the goodness of my heart,' he says and there's not the smallest trace of regret in his voice. It's strange: Sometimes she almost wishes he were a little less honest about some things.  
  
'I know that,' Liz gives back, 'I _knew_ that. But I was working for that government. I believed … '  
  
'Your faith is admirable, Lizzy.'  
  
'But misplaced,' she says bitterly, clenching her fists on her knees.  
  
Red takes her hands, gently uncurling her fingers, and studies them for a moment. Then he looks up at her.  
  
'Not entirely.'  
  
Liz doesn't pull her hands back, but instead curls her fingers around his. This is real, she reminds herself. This is the man who carried her away from the ruin of her home; this she knows, this she can believe in.  
  
'Yes,' she agrees, briefly squeezing his hands. 'Not entirely.'

* * *

He takes a last look the photograph in his hand. He has looked at it a lot, recently. His daughter looks like her mother, except for the color of her hair. And, just like her mother before her, she seems to think that Reddington is some kind of hero.  
  
The acrid smell of burning photographic paper disperses quickly. He puts the lighter back into his pocket and watches the last burning pieces of the picture of Raymond Reddington and his daughter drift to the ground.  
  
He can feel it; it'll be over soon.

* * *

'We'll be landing in ten minutes,' Dembe says and Liz almost jumps out of her seat.  
  
'Don't you ever make a sound?' she asks, pressing her hand to her chest where she can feel her heart beating wildly. Considering what lies before her, hell, considering what lies behind her, she should really be used to surprises.  
  
'Not if I can help it,' Dembe gives back, inclining his head towards her in silent apology, before going back to his own seat.  
  
'Was he just trying to be funny? Is that his version of a joke?' Liz asks.  
  
Red looks over to where Dembe is sitting.  
  
'About eight years ago, we wanted to steal information from the vacation home of an African warlord. But, and it pains me to admit this, Lizzy, I accidentally set off the alarm. We hid from his armed guards in the basement of an empty house for two days. If it hadn't been for Dembe's seemingly inexhaustible supply of jokes, I might have died of boredom.'  
  
Liz opens her mouth to accuse Red of lying but closes it again.  
  
'One of these days, I'd like to know how he came to work for you,' she says instead.  
  
'One of these days, I'll tell you how he came to be my friend.'

* * *

Cuba is sun and warmth.  
  
As Liz steps off the plane, a light breeze tousles her hair and for a moment she thinks she could be happy here. But, like so often, timing is not on her side. If she lives long enough, she might just come back.  
  
'It's a pity you never take me to these places for fun,' Liz says, turning to Red, who has stepped out of the plane behind her.  
  
He puts on his trademark sunglasses and fedora (sometimes Liz wonders whether Red has just the one or if he keeps losing them all over the world, stray fedoras marking places he's been to) and turns his face to the sun for a moment.  
  
'I will, Lizzy. When we're done, I will.'  
  
'Promise?' she asks. It's a promise she shouldn't be asking him to make, because he can't promise her that they'll both still be there at the end of this. He can't even promise her that they'll all make it out of Cuba alive. But she desperately wants him to say it, to take some of her fear away, because he doesn't lie to her and if he promises that there will be an _after_ , it has to be the truth.  
  
'I promise,' he says without pause or doubt in his voice and Liz breathes.  
  
Red leads her down the few steps from the plane onto the tarmac, his hand warm on her arm. There is a car already waiting for them and Dembe accepts the keys from a man with dark curls wearing a paisley print shirt while Tommy stores their luggage in the trunk. Red waves to the young man who waves back and then takes off at a jog towards the far side of the airfield. Dembe holds open the door for her, and Liz slides into the back of the large, black car, breathing in that unique new car smell that air fresheners will never be able to duplicate. Red joins her in the back along with Tommy, who, much like Red, doesn't seem to care too much for seat belts.  
  
'Let's go,' Red says and the engine comes alive with a soft roar.

* * *

It's a small house, with arched windows and a single palm tree swaying in the front yard. The light blue exterior paint is cracking here and there. And yet, when Liz gets out of the car, she feels oddly at peace. The place reminds her of a little vacation house outside of Seattle where Sam took her when she was ten. The roof was leaky and the water in the shower was ice cold; it's still the best vacation Liz has ever been on.  
  
'Where are we?' Liz asks, looking at Red across the roof of the car.  
  
'Forty minutes outside a tiny village called Vilorio and an hour from the coast and Guantanamo Bay. Lionel likes to hide in plain sight.'  
  
'And _who_ is Lionel?'  
  
'Who he is, in this case, is not nearly as interesting as what he is. And the answer to that would be a hacker. I don't know if he is the best there is, but he is certainly the best I know of.'  
  
Framed by Dembe and Tommy, who move with them like shadows, Red and Lizzy cross the patio to the white double door, which reveals a large entrance hall with marble floors and an old-fashioned staircase leading up to a landing in one swooping curve. Unlocked doors don't seem an awfully good idea to Liz, but maybe hackers write their own rules and don't have to worry about anyone breaking in to their home and stealing the family silver.  
  
The air inside the house is pleasantly cool, but smells stale, like the house hasn't been lived in for a while.  
  
Red, fedora under his arm, stops in the middle of the entrance hall.  
  
'Lionel!' he shouts and Liz imagines that she can hear his voice echo back to her. 'I hope you still have some of that excellent Kona coffee!'  
  
They stand there like four castaways on a lonely island, waiting for someone, anyone, to notice them.  
  
After a few moments, a man appears at the top of the stairs, clad in a bathrobe, a pair of jeans shorts (and a very hairy stomach Liz tries to ignore) peeking out.  
  
'I was really hoping you'd be dead by now,' Lionel says, scratching his neck with a pen. 'And I switched to tea three years ago.'  
  
'That's a pity. Some of the best coffee I ever had. But it's good to see you, anyway, Lionel,' Red says and smiles.  
  
'Seein' you is never a good thing, Red.'

* * *

She is seven, it's Christmas Eve and it's snowing. By morning, everything outside will be covered in a thick layer of bright white snow. The headlights of a single car cut through the darkness, blinding her for a second. She watches the car pass her house and park at the end of the street.  
  
 _Dad!_ she calls, as the man from the car slowly makes his way through the thick snow to her door, 'There's someone coming!'  
  
Sam emerges from the kitchen almost instantly, oven mitts and apron doing little to take away the air of alertness around him.  
  
 _Get away from the window, Liz_ he says. He throws the mitts onto the couch on his way to the door.  
  
Liz scrambles down from the sofa, following Sam to the door. A few snowflakes drift in lazily, along with a gust of ice-cold wind.  
  
 _A_ _ren't you going to invite me in, Sam?_ a deep voice asks, and for a moment Liz thinks Santa has come a day early.  
  
She peeks through Sam's legs. The man at the door is smaller than Sam, but broader, especially with the thick winter coat he is wearing.  
  
 _No, I won't. You're the one who told me_ No contact _.  
  
_ Liz knows that the only people you don't invite in are the bad people, and she doesn't believe that this man, who sounds like the Santa from TV, could be a bad man.  
  
 _I thought I would make an exception on Christmas_ the man says and hands Sam a paper bag with cartoon reindeer on it. _Don't worry, I didn't steal it.  
  
_ He has already turned to leave, when Sam asks: _How are you?  
  
_ _As well as can be expected._ _Some things get easier, and some don't._ He pulls up the hood of his jacket. _Merry Christmas, Sam.  
  
_ Her dad has told her many times to never talk to a stranger or leave with a stranger, but stranger or not, no one should be alone the day before Christmas, especially not people who might be Santa.  
  
 _Merry Christmas!_ Liz shouts after him, scrambling out from behind her father's legs. She's only in her slippers, so she can't go outside or they'll get all soggy, but she steps out onto the doormat and waves.  
  
 _And Merry Christmas to you, Elizabeth_ the man gives back and smiles a little.  
  
 _Only_ _my teachers call me Elizabeth_ Liz says. _You can call me Liz_ _zy_ _.  
  
_ He nods solemnly, a lone figure against the swirling snow.  
  
 _I will._

* * *

'Let me get this straight, Mr Supercriminal. You want me to send incriminating information you have collected on other criminals to various agencies all over the US?'  
  
'Of course that information will have to be untraceable and sent anonymously.'  
  
'Of course,' Lionel repeats, shaking his head. 'This is crazy. You don't know what you're askin' me here.'  
  
'I know that you have hacked every major US agency at least once so far and that you have, illegally of course, transferred money from over fifteen banks all over the world to a Swiss bank account. The current balance on that account is 250 million dollars. And I know that the only thing you love lives in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. They're seven years old, their names are Lauren and Lee and they should currently be at Murphy Elementary School.'  
  
Lionel's face moves through a myriad of emotions, before it goes completely blank.  
  
'You bastard!'  
  
He is out of his chair faster than Liz thought possible for a man of his stature and she takes an involuntary step back. But, even faster, Tommy has a hand on her gun and Dembe has a hand on Lionel's chest, holding him in place.  
  
It's an uneven fight, one that Lionel knows he can't win. He heaves a defeated sigh and falls back onto his chair, his head in his hands. Red hasn't moved.  
  
'Bradley will kill them, if I help you. So what difference does it make, really?' His voice is muffled by his hands, but the despair in it is clear.  
  
He wipes the sweat off his face with the tip of his bathrobe, not looking at any of them. Liz is grateful for the fact that she doesn't have to look at Lionel, even if that might be a cowardly thing to think.  
  
She doesn't want to exploit this father's love; she doesn't want to exploit anyone's love, because she knows how it feels to have love used against you.  
  
'One of these days, Caleb Bradley is going to ask you to work for him and he is going to threaten your children, too, but after you've done what he asked, he will kill them anyway and then he will kill you,' Red says. 'If you help me, he won't live long enough to harm you or your children.'  
  
'What can you do, Red?' Lionel asks, pushing the fallen leaves of a dead potted plant off his desk.  
  
'I can kill him,' Red gives back.  
  
At that, Lionel does look up at him.  
  
'Yourself?'  
  
'Myself.'  
  
'And they'll be safe?'  
  
'You have my word.'  
  
'The last time we met, you swore I'd never have to see you again, so excuse me if I don't much care for any of your words,' Lionel says. He turns to Liz. 'I want your word.'  
  
It takes her by surprise, to be noticed. She is used to people looking right past her when she's with Red, like everything around him is negative space.  
  
'Why would you believe anything I say?'  
  
'Because you don't look like someone who'd sleep at night if you had two dead children on your conscience,' Lionel says and he's right, of course. 'You're the only one here who doesn't look like a killer. If you give me your word that my kids will be safe, I'll do whatever you want.'  
  
Her mouth tastes like the cigarettes she used to secretly smoke behind the school.  
  
'They'll be safe,' she says without hesitation.  
  
This is what faith is: Smoke and blood on your tongue and the fierce wish to be proven right in your trust in someone else.  
  
Lionel looks at her for a long moment and Liz looks back at him.  
  
'Alright, Red,' he finally says, turning to his computer and bringing it to life. 'Show me what you got.'

* * *

When they leave Lionel's place a few hours later, the nervous, restless and angry air about him is mostly gone and he almost smiles at Liz.  
  
By now, the sun has sunk down low, and everything is tinged pale red and violet. It does nothing to calm Liz.  
  
She waits for Dembe and Tommy to get into the car, then she turns to Red. It's yet another over-the-car conversation and it puts a distance between them, a distance that she's trying very hard to ignore, or better overcome, but that just keeps being _right_ _there_.  
  
'Would you really have hurt his children?' she asks.  
  
She wants to be hard, but she feels like his and her definition of the word and what it entails differ. Liz wants to believe that being hard means to endure; Red seems to believe that you can only be hard by making other people seem weak.  
  
'Since Lionel decided to help us, there was no need to find out.'  
  
'That's not an answer.'  
  
'No, it's not,' Red admits. His fingers tap a rhythm on the roof of the car. 'There are situations in which you have to decide what is more important to you: The people someone else loves, or the people you love. I hope you never have to make such a decision, Lizzy.'  
  
'I've already made my decision,' she says and gets in the car.  
  
She doesn't hear him say: 'Yes, that's what I was afraid of.'

* * *

' _-_ _still waiting for an official statement, but spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the NSA have confirmed that they received anonymous tips which led to the arrest of_ _more than_ _twenty of the most wanted criminals in_ _the United States_ _within the last_ _six_ _hours. No names have yet been made public -_ '

* * *

Bradley paces the length of the room, flipping the lighter in his hand open and shut, open and shut, and watches the flame flare up and die down again. He likes fire, likes how fast it becomes uncontrollable, devouring everything in its path. He would have enjoyed watching Reddington burn and see the flesh melt off his bones.  
  
It makes his skin itch, makes him want to rip it off shred by shred, to know that in their very private game of chess Reddington has just taken the lead. They've been playing for a long time, now. Reddington for revenge, because he is an overachieving little soldier and revenge is the honorable thing to do, and Bradley simply because he can, because he is good at burning and breaking and killing.  
  
Bradley puts his lighter away and unclenches his left hand. He doesn't lose, he never loses. Not to a man who is driven by love and loyalty.  
  
'Get everyone. Everyone,' he says to the two men standing guard at the door. 'It's still his move so he'll contact me, he has to, and when he does – we hit him so hard he never gets up again.'  
  
If he can't see Reddington burn, he will at least see him suffer and bleed.

* * *

It is the middle of the night by the time they get back to DC. The city is the same as they left it, slightly disheveled yet professional. The explosion of last night has already made way for the new headline that flashes across TV and computer screens and will be on the first page of every major newspaper in the morning:

_A COUNTRY WITHOUT CRIME_.

It does, like the media is wont to do, blatantly ignore the facts, but Liz doesn't begrudge the people of DC their naive wish to ignore the terror on their own doorstep. In fact, she almost wishes she could join the ignorant people in the restaurants they pass; put on a bit of make up and a fancy dress and try to get as many drinks for free as possible; lie on her couch with some ice-cream and her dog's head resting on her thigh and shut her eyes to reality like everybody else.  
  
But her eyes are wide open. She's in a car with her uncle who is a wanted criminal and they're running right into a war she doesn't even really understand and she wants to keep this tiny piece of family as close as possible – because she can't afford to lose any more people who belong to her, no matter how criminal.  
  
And she is terrified.  
  
'Lizzy,' Red says softly, like he always does, as if he is just as afraid as she is. 'You don't have to stay. I have already made you do too much.'  
  
She takes his hand without looking over at him, just holding on.  
  
'Whatever happens, I will not make you a liar. Or a murderer. I will keep you safe,' he promises, his voice a whisper in the otherwise silent car.  
  
'Red,' Liz says and smiles despite herself, 'My life didn't really get any _safer_ after you walked into that FBI building.'  
  
Red is quiet for a while. With a man like Red, silences can be their own kind of conversation.  
  
'Do you hate me, for taking the life you had?' he finally asks.

* * *

It's not really a memory, more like a picture with sound and voices. She can see herself sitting on the living room floor in front of the TV, a doll in her arms. Her mother is leaning heavily against the doorjamb, a fist-sized bruise on her cheek. The front door bangs shut and makes her mother jump.  
  
It's the first time Liz understands that the emotion in her mother's eyes is fear; it's the first time she understands pain.  
  
It changes everything and Liz hates it so much, she stuffs the doll under her bed and doesn't play with her again, because she reminds her too much of her mother's bruised face.

* * *

'I hated you, in the beginning, when you turned everything upside down. Me and Tom and my work. Subtlety really isn't your strong suit,' Liz says.  
  
'Oh, I can be subtle.' Red gives back, lifting an eyebrow suggestively.  
  
Liz smiles. 'Like a sledgehammer in a porcelain shop, maybe.'  
  
They stop at a red light and she uses the moment to undo her seat belt and move closer to Red. She sits next to him, cross-legged, her knee just brushing his thigh, his hand still in hers.  
  
'I don't hate you, now, Red. I just don't like your methods,' she admits.  
  
'I have been collecting information and building connections all these years, trying to be able to match the power the people I am chasing have. I'm afraid I have become rather like them, in the process.'  
  
'You are a lot of things, Raymond Reddington, and not all of them good, but what you are not is a power-hungry killer, who hurts people who are weaker than he is because he enjoys it or simply because he can,' Liz says, tugging at his sleeve to make him look at her.  
  
She thinks she finally understands: they are both scared of what they have done, and what they didn't do, and they both desperately need the other one to stay and say that everything will be alright.  
  
So when he asks 'And you believe that?', she answers, 'I know it.'  
  
Red smiles at her, and it's the first real, honest and open smile he has ever shown her.  
  
'Thank you, Lizzy.'  
  
'Anytime, Red,' she says.  
  
'Does that mean you'll trust me one more time?'  
  
Liz stretches out her legs and looks past Red at the skyscrapers they're passing by.  
  
'Your plan's very desperate, I hope you know that.'  
  
'Yes,' he admits. 'Very much like us.'  
  
She nods. 'Do you think it's going to work?'  
  
'I think it's our best chance, Lizzy' he says honestly.  
  
'Will you buy me a pony, if we survive this and don't get locked up in jail for the rest of our lives?' Liz asks, a sudden bout of gallows humor taking hold of her, as she realizes that this is it: all or nothing. 'I wanted one for my birthday, but Dad never got me one.'  
  
'I'm sure I am not supposed to undermine Sam's parenting decisions.'  
  
'I think you are allowed to spoil your niece every now and then.'  
  
'When this is over, I will buy you a pony,' Red promises very seriously.  
  
'Then I'm in,' Liz says and leans back against the soft leather seats.  
  
'Left at the next intersection, please, Dembe.'

* * *

A pretty house, a pretty garden, a white door. A family with two children and a big, American car.  
  
Alan Fitch is living the American dream. And now, oh America, he is staring down the barrel of a gun, his wife, gagged and tied up, sobbing on the couch.  
  
'Hello, Alan,' Red says and smiles.  
  
Fitch is not a brave man; he is only a politician. He drops his briefcase.  
  
Whatever is about to happen to him, he is sure his career and the money he made weren't worth it.

* * *

One of his men hands him the phone; he never carries it himself. Working with (he works _for_ no one) the government will do that to a man.  
  
'Yes?'  
  
Coughing, then: 'This is Fitch. We need to meet.'  
  
'Now?'  
  
'Yes. There's been a new development. Something that cannot be discussed over the phone.'  
  
Bradley turns to one of his men, giving a silent signal with his hand.  
  
'Why now?' he asks.  
  
'What does it matter?' comes the slightly out-of-breath reply. 'We'll meet because I tell you we need to meet.'  
  
Bradley is quiet for a second, listening to the rushing sound that he can hear over the phone.  
  
'Give him the phone,' he says then.  
  
'I don't know what - '  
  
'Just give him the phone.'  
  
More rushing and crackling, then the breathing pattern at the end of the line changes.  
  
'Hello, _Red_ ,' Bradley says. He gets a thumbs-up from the man at the side of the room and nods.  
  
'Caleb. It's been a while.'  
  
'Has it? Seems like only yesterday that I burned your sister.'  
  
'It was only yesterday that I got all your assets arrested. I do hope it inconvenienced you.'  
  
'I admit, what you did made me angry for a while. But it's nothing that can't be undone. There are men looking for work everywhere, and in two or three months, you and everything you might have done will be history.'  
  
'In three months, there won't be anyone left alive or willing to work for you.'  
  
He's out in the open now and there are men with guns and black cars waiting. He makes sure to close the car door quietly.  
  
'You've got nothing to use against me.'  
  
'I've got your daughter.'  
  
'Ah, yes. Elizabeth.' He tastes the name on his tongue; he never much cared for it. 'The spitting image of her mother and just as useless, I'm sure. I don't care about her, or the politician. Stick their heads on the Empire State Building, it doesn't matter. I want to kill _you_ because you annoy me. But you, _you_ … I think you're getting tired. I think you want to play house with my daughter. You're just a sad, discarded soldier who's lost everything he ever loved to me. I think you want me dead a little more desperately than I you.'  
  
The cars are moving, following a blinking dot on a tiny screen.

* * *

Red's face is grim and the hand around hers tightens.

* * *

'Now,' Bradley says, 'We can do this the easy way, where you come to me so I can shoot you and we skip the part where we chase each other around the city like schoolboys, or we chase each other around the city like schoolboys but, in the end, I also shoot you. This is always going to end the same way for you.'

* * *

Lizzy, standing next to Sam in the first row of black-clad mourners, seems even smaller than the last time he saw her. She is quiet, dry-eyed, but holding on tightly to the single rose in her hand.  
  
To him, it feels less like a funeral and more like a terrible, macabre déjà vu; people in black standing around a coffin covered in flowers (except the last time there was a smaller coffin, as well), pretending to listen to the priest who is talking about peace and ashes if those words meant any comfort at all.  
  
It's even raining again.  
  
He doesn't stay to the end of the funeral; he didn't the last time, either. He doesn't need to see someone he loves lowered into a hole in the ground to understand that they are gone.  
  
As he walks away, he imagines wrapping his anger and hatred around himself like an armor; he won't attend another funeral.

* * *

The car that crashes into theirs, t-boning it at a perfect deadly angle, makes everything go sharp and white.

And then black.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to post this as one long piece and will, at some point, post the conclusion (I already know what's going to happen, I just need to write it, which, as we all know, is the hardest part about being a writer).
> 
> This was written ages ago, before even season 3 I think, so it has nothing whatsoever to do with what is happening in the show currently.


End file.
